


Rise of the Clone

by Reading_Wanderer



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: First Person Perspective, Kraang cloning gives the Clone the ability to read Kraang - or does it?, a 2012 Dark Turtle Clone AU, he has half a clue how everything works- and that’s kind of worse than knowing nothing, not yet at least, stockman messing with Kraang tech, the Clone is not given a name, this took me literal years to finish because I kept procrastinating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-07-29 19:59:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16271291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reading_Wanderer/pseuds/Reading_Wanderer
Summary: In a warehouse somewhere in Manhattan, something wakes for the first time. Coming to consciousness surrounded by goo and with no idea of the world around them, what could the future hold?A dark Turtle Clone AU set in the 2012 universe





	Rise of the Clone

**Author's Note:**

> The idea comes from the dark clones in the 2003 version, but it is also nothing like them at all. This is set after Baxter’s Gauntlet and before he got mutated.
> 
> I have ideas for this AU, but it also took me a long time to get this one down on ‘paper’ so it might not go anywhere. idk, in some ways I still need to figure out where everything in this AU is going.

    It is cold when I wake. Stuff holds me. It feels slimy. I do not like it. It moves when I do. It is even more cold if I move parts away from me. I pull in. I feel more warm if I stay close to me. Myself feels heavy. 

    I sleep.

* * *

 

   I wake. It is cold and slimy. i do not like it. There is something on me. It stops the slimy from touching part of me. It pushes something in me. The something is warmer. It is not slimy. It is not like the thing on me. It is less. It is almost not there, but it is there. I can feel it move when I suck it in me and push it out. I pull in lots of it and hold. I keep it in me for a long time. The longer I hold it in, the more I want to let it out. I let it out. I do that some more. I try to see how long I can hold it. I get bred. I pull myself close again. I am warm.

    I sleep.

* * *

    Something is new this time. There is more of me touching the slimy. I had it tucked close. Now it is not. I did not know I could move it too. I can feel the slimy change as I move. It is going from slimy to wet as I move. I bring the more closer to me. It touches one of my lower parts. It is smaller than my other parts. It moves without me making it. I tuck it back close. It feels weird to keep it close now. i let it out into the slimy again. I reach out as far as it goes. It feels good. My other parts want to move too. I stretch them out too. They feel good too. The slimy is cold against them. I reach farther and farther.  My upper parts feel something different. It is cold too. It is not slimy. It is more like the thing that pushes stuff into me. It doesn't move when I push at it. I move the ends of my upper parts across it. It does not end. It keeps going as far as I can reach. I try to push off of it to reach higher up. Every time I try, I slide back down. I am cold. I pull my parts back to me. Me is warm.

    I sleep.

* * *

    I'm somewhere else when I wake. i'm somewhere warm, I can feel... blankets?- on me. The -bed?- under me is solid with just the right amount of give. I'm comfortable? New words and experiences? are filling my... Head? What's happening? i don't know what's going on. I can feel my breathing speed up in response. The end of my parts- arms!- the hands are getting sweaty. I can hear someone coming closer to me, more than one of them. Their footsteps make a small slapping noise against the floor. Their voices come, softly at first, and grow louder the longer I listen. They are babbling about something or other. They seem... happy. A surge of warmth runs through me. Something warm suddenly touches my shoulder-

    I open my eyes.

    The cold of the slime comes rushing back. I'm not in a bed. Here, there are no blankets. i'm suddenly back in the slime from before and it's Getting. In. My. Eyes!

    It Burns! It Hurts! Get it OUT! I thrash around in the goo and slam my arms into the walls of the container or whatever the shell it is. I can feel the thing over my mouth trying to pull away as I move father from whatever it's connected to. There's something new, on top of my head, weighing me down. It's pushing me farther in the goo! I struggle harder, hitting the walls on purpose now. Suddenly, I can smell something new in the mask. I struggle as much as I can, but it feels like my arms are being weighed down. My whole body feels heavy.

    I fall into the darkness of sleep once more...

* * *

    I wake slowly this time. The first thing I feel is the heaviness of my limbs. They don't respond when I try to bring them closer again. Slowly, I start to feel the coldness of the slime again. It feels... colder than before. Especially around my wrists and ankles. Now that I opened my eyes, the eyelids twitch with the  urge to raise once more. I try to ignore it the best I can. Instead, I attempt to move my arms and legs again. It's easier this time, even though they still won't move as fast as I want them to. I move my head and feel something move on top of it. It feels like the thing that was pushing me down into the slime before. I spend a while just moving my hands over my new hat. It has a bunch of weird bumps and dents all over it. It moves with me when I bounce between the walls of my home, but when I try to go lower, a strap digs into my chin. After a while, I get bored and just float. I'm not tired, but I don't have anything else to do wither. It use to be so easy for me to fall asleep. I'm bored. Bored. Bored. Bored...

     I don't know how long I was floating there before something new caught my attention. There's a sound. I sounds like... talking? "Everything is going according to plan Master Shredder." There was a pause. I strain my ears, trying to find out what was going on. "Of course Master Shredder, the mutagen will be ready for tomorrow's procedure." I try to listen for a long time afterwards, but the person never gets loud enough to hear. He just sort of mumbles. I wonder who he is. Why is he taking orders from a shredder? And what's mutagen? I have so many questions. 

                Eventually, I fall asleep again.

* * *

    Time passes slowly. 

    It's becoming harder to tell when I'm awake or when I'm sleeping. Every time I sleep, I dream of warmth and others and I feel like I'm right there with them, even if they can't see or respond to me. I still can't see them either, so I guess fair's fair. Sometimes they talk about things I've never heard of- about humans called April and Casey, about Kraang, about this thing called retromutagen-, but other times it's just feelings of warmth and love. A couple of times there have been shrieks of outrage and playfulness or anger and pain. And once, only once, there was anger so strong I could call it hate. I wonder who they are, if they're my family or something and I'm remembering them, but something tells me that's wrong. Sometimes when I wake up from those dreams, my nerves have this sort of buzzy feeling that goes away after a couple seconds. It's usually after the ones talking about Kraang things or the humans. 

    I spend time awake just sorta floating around. I've been practicing holding my breath again. I count as I go too. I can get all the way up to six hundred easy - holding my breath, not counting-, but after that it's a bit harder. I've been stretching and moving my arms and legs too. I haven't heard anything from the dude taking orders from the shredder in a while. Maybe he comes in when i'm sleeping. 

    It's another dull day -night?- some point in time. I feel like I should be trying to find some way to escape, but it's not like I can open my eyes to see anything. I can't go any higher in the slime to try and feel for a crack or exit of any kind, my hands and feet just slip against the walls. Then there's the hat. It may not weigh me down anymore, but it doesn't let me go higher either. I feel around the strap to try and find where it connects, but it just reaches farther up into the inside of the hat. The strap doesn't move when I try to tug on it. I pull at it for a while before giving up. Why am I even trying to escape? It's not like anything rally bad is happening to me. The worse thing that happened to me was getting slime into my eyes and that was my own fault.

    Where would I even go? I can't remember anything before waking up in this stupid slime. I kick at the slime listlessly as I think about life outside of this little room. i wonder if I'd have to eat and poop when I got out of here. I haven't eaten anything since I woke up here. I don't think I've pooped either... Maybe it's the slime? I mean, it's not like there's anything else around besides the air mask-tube thing and my hat. What do I even know about the outside world? How do I even know it exists? I have dreams about somewhere warm and I heard a  voice once. For all I know, the voice was all in my head. Where am I even? Is anyone else even here?

                    So many questions and no answers....

    Oh well. No use in dwelling on things I can't help. I mean, what am I going to do? Break out of here with my non-existent superpowers?

      Wait....

    What's a super power/ Do I have one? How would I even know if I had superpowers or not? I search my brain for more information, but come up blank. When did I even learn that word? What other words don't I know I know? I wrack my brain for new words. Slowly, they trickle into my head. I can hear a whirring noise coming form my hat, but I ignore it in favor of my new words.

      Turtles

          Mutant

              Lair

   Words keep coming faster and faster as the hat's whirring gets louder and louder. Father, sensei, ninja, mask. Soon, it's not just words, but images and memories that flow into my head. Learning to read. Writing words. Drawing. Being taught how to fight. Sparing with turtle mutants - _brothers_ -. A rat man - _sensei?-_ in a robe thing. Each image comes with flashes of emotions. Frustration, wonder, happiness, pain, hurt, shame, but also other emotions that don't seem to belong to the person - _Me?_ \- the person the memories belong to - _can't be mine_ \- but to the others - _their family?-_  Determination, anger, confidence, joy, happiness, pride, regret.

   My head starts to ache. I want to slow down, to really look at the memories, but they just keep coming. Cooking food for everyone, cleaning without help, running away from home and through the sewers, skateboarding alone, racing away from the turtle with the chip, being beat up by the other turtles. Suddenly, it's not just the pictures and the words. Sounds- _MikeyMichaelangeloShellforbrainsIdiot_ -, sensations - _roughfloorindojohandstouchinghugscuddling_ -, smells - _rancidfoodvomitpoopturtlesrat_ \- and tastes- _blandsweetsourbittersaltyspicy_ \- come rushing in. 

    **It** - _curiosityroughfloorcoldglasscolorfulliquidssweetscentMIkeyNO_!- **Hurts! Make** - _laughterhurtpressurecoppertasteSayIt!turtlesmellbehindeyespainLoser!_ - **It** - _disapointmentfailureregretI'msorry_ - **Stop! Too** - _snappedcrayonsteasingvoicestearsstreamingdowncheeksDaddy!_ - **Much! The memories won't stop! Why** - _what'sthis?_ \- **Won't** - _sharpedgesredblood_ \- **They** - _Don'tTouchThat!_ \- **Stop!**

   Pressure builds behind my eyes. I can feel something like sleep - _warmthconfortbrotherssewerhomesmell_ -, but not - _darknesshurtpleasebeokay!coppersmellwet_ \- start to pull me in. I go willingly- _Donniegogetdaddy!_ -. As it crowds me, everything else seems to just fade away - _I'msorry_ -.

                I pass out.

* * *

   The whirring noise is gone when I wake up again. My whole body feels sore, from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. I don't want to move at all, just float in my slime. Even thinking hurts. I just let myself drift, not thinking, just breathing.

      In,

   Out.

      In,

   Out.

   One of my new memories floats to the surface of my mind. First, the scent of home, three turtles, a rat, and the stench of the sewers. Then, a low voice starts talking. I can't 'remember' the words themselves, but the sound is soothing. I can feel the roughness of mats beneath my knees and the warmth of the sun on my shell.

      In,

   Out.

      In,

   Out.

   I can feel my sore muscles relaxing as the memory plays out. I can feel my lips starting to turn up into a smile, but, then, another feeling creeps up from my new memories. It starts with a sort of buzzing along my nerves, sorta like what I feel when I wake up sometimes. The sensation grows stronger as time passes until, finally, it seems to disappear only to be replaced by something else. I can feel... emotions? Coming from the others. It's no less weird than it was when I was getting overwhelmed yesterday. The feeling is natural to the person from the memories, but, to me, it just feels... off somehow.

   Each of them, besides feeling different things, have a different feel to their individual energies. I abandon my breathing exercises as I concentrate more on the memory. At first, they all press upon me, us, equally. Then we -I?- reach out to one of them. the closer we get, the more the one energy blocks out the signals from the others. I don't know them, but there's a sense of familiarity as their energy washes over us. At first its just a bunch of mixed up feelings, moving too fast for us to make sense of, but eventually they settle into a more solid form.

   I can finally tell which of the four scents this aura belonged to, because the shadowed form of a man sized rat sits in the middle. From that form, rays of aura-light shoot out and make a sort of egg around him. On the surface it is smooth and calm, but we can just barely feel the undercurrents it's trying to hide as well. Each emotion has a different feel and look to it, almost like a color,  but at the same time not. Hurt - _a sorta redish brown_ -, sorrow, - _deep blue_ \- and confusion - _sickly yellow_ \- is all covered by a thick shell of patience - _light purple- and love - _soft pink_ -. I can only dwell on this knowledge for so long though, as the memory continues on.  The person the memory belonged to aparently hadnt been happy with the emotions this one was hiding. I'm not too enthused by their depression either, but where as I would leave them alone, the other person reaches outs and pokes at the edge._

   The effect is both immediate and frightening. The part of the 'shell' that we touched immediatly brightened and gained a happyness -white brightness- glow to it. Then, it seemed to shoot all the way to the core, back to the shadowed form, and wrap around him. If there's anything else to see, I don't know. As soon as we brushed against the aura, it swatted right back at us. To me, after what happened before, the pain isn't that bad.

                      - _Or maybe the memory is faded_ -

   But to the other, it smarts all the way back to their own core. As they back up, the egg turns back into a mixed up cloud and the others start pressing in again. The memory keeps going, but the ache growing in the back of my head makes me think that it's time to stop. Instead, I go back to my breathing exercises and clear my mind.

   Eventually I fall asleep.

* * *

   I feel a lot better when I wake up again. My muscles aren't so sore and it doesn't hurt to think anymore. I wonder why it hurts to remember those new memories, but not to remember, like, my dreams or that time I opened my eyes in the slime... Maybe because they're not mine? At least I don't think they're mine. But remembering words, or sounds, or what things look like, or how to speak doesn't hurt, even though I don't remember ever doing it. Weird. Maybe it depends on the memory?

   I wonder if I can do the buzzing energy thing too. It'd be cool to know if there's anyone else around here. I haven't heard anyone since the dude who follows shredders left. Maybe I'm all alone. Did the weird shredder-follower dude even know I was here? That's sorta, sad, to think about.

         All alone...

   It feels... wrong, in a way. I mean, that last memory I was "watching" had four other scents in it, so the other person, at least, had a family. Maybe I do too. I guess the only way to figure it out is to try to do the buzzy thing. Alright. Start with the breathing exercise again.

      In,

   Out.

      In,

   Out.

      In,                                         this is getting boring...

   Out.

      In,              how do I even do this?

   Out.

      In,                                                                        Ack, a cold spot. Gotta move my foot.

   Out.          this is hard

      In,                         How the heck did I manage this last time?

   Out.     Clear my mind.

      In,                                                             relax...

   It's slow, but eventually I start to feel a buzzing around my nerves. It's different than in the memory though, and as soon as I focus on them to try and figure out why, they disappear. I keep trying, but the more i try, the more frustrated i get and the harder it is to get the buzzy feeling back. Finally, I give up. I let out a huff and cross my arms. I'm bored, I'm frustrated, and I can't open my eyes. This sucks. With nothing better to do, I kick the wall.

   "Hey!" I didn't actually expect a response. I'm not alone! I try to talk back to them, but the only thing that comes out is puffs of air. - _There's a freak out for another time_ \- They haven't responded since I kicked the wall. Maybe if I...

   Kick. "Hey, Stop that!" Kick. "What the heck!" Kick. "Stop it you stupid turtle." They keep getting more annoyed, but I can't stop the grin stretching across my face. Kick. "Arghhhh." There's that sound of stomping, then a door slamming into a wall. Then, nothing. I wait a few moments, but when i don't hear anything new, i go to kick at the wall again. Suddenly, a new noise starts up. I can feel myself moving down as the slime starts rushing out of my room. My air mask moves with me too, which is cool because it's always been stuck in place before when i've tried to move. I can feel my feet touch a metal grate. The slime keeps rushing out around me, so I try to stand, but I've been floating for so long. I fall forward and end up sticking my face in the slime again before it's all gone. I rub my fingers across the metal grate. It feels weird after feeling everything through a layer of slime for so long. I can hear things much clearer too.

   I can hear things beeping and whirring, all sorts of different noises. Mostly, I just hear the other mumbling and cursing to himself. I wonder what he looks... Wait. I can’t help but grin as I reach up and rub the goo off my eyelids.

 

Wow.

 

   ....sight is a beautiful thing and I never want to lose it again. The place we're in is sorta dark, most of the light is coming in from a door to the next room over and the rest is coming from the slime and the metal stuff attached to my tube -'cause that's what my room turns out to be, a big glass tube-, so the light doesn't hurt my eyes too much. I can see machines all over the place and and ooooooooooo!

   There are other tubes! There are others and they have other turtles in them! There's one tube next to me and then two more on the other side of the room. I can't really see the other two very good, but the one next to me definitely has another turtle! I can see them floating in the same greenish slime that I was in. It looks like they're sleeping though. That stinks, I want to meet them... Oh well. Maybe next time. I hope the guy lets me out soon, this place looks so cool.

   I can hear him mumbling to himself in the other room. It seems like he's still upset about me kicking the glass. I hope he lets me out, and he's not just gonna fill my tank again. I wobble to my feet, using the wall to keep me from falling over. I almost fall over again anyway because the glass is slippery, but my feet move almost automatically to balance myself. Weird.

   I wait there for a while, watching the door and waiting for the dude to come in let me out, but it doesn't seem like he's coming any time soon. I wonder if he would come if I kicked the wall again. Hmmm. Maybe I shouldn't, I can see where the glass is cracked from my kicking before. But if i did, I might be able to get out on my own. But broken glass hurts, I remember that much from when the memories were all getting pushed at me. I don't know. I sigh and lean against the wall instead. My shell makes a scratchy sound against it as I slide to the floor. Well, at least I can finally get a better look at myself, sorta. The darkness and the colored lights make everything look different colors. The stuff that gets lit up by the light from the other room looks one color while the stuff that's lit up by the lights on the tubes look a different color. I'm too far from the door to see what color I am, which sucks. I can look at my feet and shell though, I can finally see what I've only felt before.

   The first thing I look at is the skin of my hands. It is rough to the touch, and looks a bit like scales. The pads of my fingers are oddly thick and calloused for someone who's never left a slime filled tube. Unless... Maybe I am the same turtle from my memories? I shake my head.

   No. No, we are different, I know it. Though exactly how I know it, I couldn't say. There is something about those memories that doesn't quite sit well with me. They feel right and wrong at the same time and they hurt to remember and- No. Now's not the time to dwell on things like that. Not when I'm finally out of the goo. Not when I don't know if I'm going to be put back in later or if I'm out for good.

   Instead of continuing on that train of thought, I turn back to my hands. I have three fingers on each hand, two normal fingers and a thumb with a bit of thinner, sorta see through skin stretching between each finger and the next. My nails are long and sharp and, if I squeeze the muscles in my fingers a bit, they come out even more. My toe nails are the same way, except they don't come out as far. I try scratching at my skin a bit, and almost right away I cut myself. What really stinks about how sharp my nails are is that, now that the slime is slowly drying on my skin, it's starting to itch. A lot.

   Trying to rub it off doesn't help, it just sticks more on the places I don't want it to stick. And the breathing mask is still stuck to my face, so I can't just chew the tips off my nails. This stinks. I sigh and turn back to my examination of my body. Maybe I can ignore the itchiness if I have something else to concentrate on.

   My front is -itchy- covered in bony plates that are hard to the touch, but I can still sorta feel things through it. It's different than how I feel with my skin. They don't feel itchy like my skin does either, which is great. I scratch at them a bit, and there's a rough, rasping noise. Little scraps of dried slime come off, but the plates remain undamaged. Cool.

   Eventually, the dude comes back. I'm sitting on the ground and I've almost gotten all the slime off my front and the little bridge things connecting my front plates to my shell by the time he does though. He took forever. And he's still talking to himself, quieter now, but I can still sort of hear him when he comes to the door, even if I can't see him yet.

   "...Right, just like I've practiced," is the last thing I hear from him before he comes into the room. Or bursts is more like it. The bright light from the other room sorta blinds me for a bit before my eyes adjust and the colorful spots go away.

   Honestly, I'm not sure what I expected to see. I mean, in the memories from the other one, I've seen humans before. At least, I've sorta remembered from someone else what humans look like on a -what's it called again? Video box, something-vision, Oh! I know- television. Seeing them in person is much different.

   The dude's skin is dark, brown I think, and his hair is even darker than that, black like the darkness in the room. Most his skin is covered by a baggy looking pink shirt and dark-bluish looking pants and he's got these round clear things except for the borders sitting on his face -'glasses,' the word comes after a bit before floating away once more-. I think the weirdest thing about him is that he doesn't have a shell. I mean, his back is all bare and stuff except for that flimsy pink cloth. What if someone tries to hurt him back there? He doesn't have anything protecting him. He also has a weird collar thing around his neck. It's got little bumps on it and I can see the same green and blue slime I have all over me sitting in them. The only difference is that the stuff on me is all dull and looks like it's turning grey while his slime is glowing a bit.

   "...were hurt when I found you. Do you remember anything?" Oops. I think he was talking while I was staring at him.

    "Sorry," I try to say, "I wasn't paying attention." I know the words. My mouth automatically moves to form them and air leaves my mouth, but not a sound comes out besides the air moving, the hissing of the s sounds and the burst of the t sounds.

    "What?" He seems confused "I didn't hear you. Wait." He stops me from trying again and goes to fiddle with the machine around the bottom of my tube. There's a hiss of air and I watch as the crack in the glass lowers towards me, eventually sliding down into the floor. "And let me get that." The feeling of skin brushing against me is weird and I can't help but flinch a bit when he reaches to the back of my head and unstraps the mask from my face.

   I try to speak to him again, "I wasn't listening, can you say what you said again?" Still nothing. His face dropped, I could see it just sag in disappointment.

   "No no no no," he groaned, tugging at his hair. I don't know why he's freaking out so much, I'm the one who can't talk. Why can't I talk? What's wrong with me? Before I can start dwelling on it too much, he grabs my arm and practically drags me out of the only room I've ever seen -the tube doesn't count anymore-. The touch is weird and foreign and I don't like it, but I don't try to struggle away. I follow him into another, bigger and brighter room.

   Have I mentioned how much I love sight? I'm using my eyes to the fullest extent now, looking around the room that Shell-less is pulling me through. In the center of the room is a huge glass tube thing full of goo. It's all bright just like the stuff in pink-shirt's collar instead of dim and grey like the stuff on me. There's machines and blinking lights all around it. It's so pretty. I want to poke them. I am going to touch every single one of those machines. There’s also a bunch of thick chords running across the floor between it and the walls and I almost trip on a few of them.

   I want to keep looking at everything in the room, but Pinky is still pulling me over somewhere else. We end up going through a door into another room, though this one is much smaller. There's machines in here too, but they're much smaller and don't look nearly as interesting as the ones out there.

   And he's pulling me to- Oh would you look at that!- Another tube. Will I get in? How about no. "Okay turtle," he tries to convince me, "just stand on that platform so I can do some tests." I glare at him and cross my arms for emphasis. I am not going to let myself be put into another tube. If he wants me in there he's going to have to put me in there himself. “Come on,” he tries to cajole me, “it won’t hurt a bit.”

   I turn around. I didn’t think it would hurt, but now I’m really not getting into that tube. “Turtle-” he shouts at me. I start walking out the door. I don’t care what he says, I’d rather look for somewhere to sleep. I’m getting tired. If he let me out, Pinky should have some sort of sleeping spot set up for me. If not, I’m sure I could make something –oof!

   Did he just tackle me? I look over my shoulder and I can see him hanging off the back of my shell. He’s holding his head and groaning. Did he just try to tackle me to the ground? “I think this isn’t going to work out for you,” I ‘tell’ him as he stands up, still holding his head, and tries to tug me back using my shell to try and unbalance me. I just shift my weight forward the same amount he’s pulling back and stand there while he uses up all his energy. He’s not going to move me at all like this.

   Looks like he realized it too, because he just let go all of a sudden. I wasn’t ready for the change, so I stumble forward a bit on my unsteady feet. I would have been able to keep standing, but apparently this was part of Pinky’s plan, because he took advantage of me being unbalanced to tackle me to the ground. I let out an ‘oof’ as I hit the ground, thankfully catching myself with my arms rather than my chin, and then he fell down on top of me. My arms shook under our combined weight, so I lowered myself the rest of the way to the floor before they gave out and my chin said hi to the floor. It’s sorta warm down here, huh. I think I’ll just lay here for a while.

   I can feel Pinky scramble off my shell, but I don’t really care too much. I’m nice and warm, and I’m getting a bit sleepy too. I just sort of watch him blankly while he attempts to drag me over to the tube via the back of my shell again. This dude is such a dud- he can’t even move me more than a couple inches before he collapses on the floor next to me. I almost feel bad for him. “Why can’t I do anything right?” I can hear him mumble to himself next to me, “Why am I such a fucking failure? I’m going to die…” …And now I actually do feel bad. I didn’t mean to make him upset…

   I reach over for him and pull him into a one-armed hug. It’s okay dude,” I mouth to him even though he’s turned away from me and flailing around trying to get away. I’m not going to go into the tube, but at least I can try to make him feel better. Eventually, he stops squirming and settles down into the hug. I yawn and shift around to get comfortable. He’s warm, the floor’s warm, and I’m tired. It doesn’t take long at all for me to fall asleep cuddled into his back while he mutters to himself.

* * *

   …I never should have fallen asleep where he could get me. I mean sure, he totally failed to move me more than a couple inches while I was awake, but apparently he had a way around that. ‘Cause apparently, as soon as I fell asleep, he put me

In.

The.

Tube.

Aaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh

   The only thing that this has going for it right now is that it isn’t the same one I was in before. There isn’t any goo in it and the room isn’t pitch black. The machines that I saw when I first came in here are all on now. They look much cooler now that they have flashing lights and moving parts. There’s a couple of them attached to the tube I’m in. A bunch of them have screens on them. Four of them have turtle shapes on them. I’m pretty sure one of them is of me, because it keeps moving when I do. I think the others are the other turtles in the tubes back in the other room. They look so Cute!

   None of us are the same size on the screens, I’m the biggest. The next one is about half my size on the screen. The third is just a bit smaller and the last one is just tiny. Is sooo cute! It looks like a little baby! Oh My Grersh! I just want to cuddle it- it’s so cuuuuuutte! If I could make any sort of noise besides air sounds, I would totally be squealing like a girl right now.

   I drag my eyes reluctantly away from the little cutie- I wonder if it has a name? I could totally name that little cutie- and back to the screens themselves.They, the pictures of the other three, don’t really move much except to rotate in place, but my picture moves with me, which is how I know its mine, while little round dots on specific parts send off stems and boxes with all these words in them. I can’t really understand what they say, because they're a bit far away plus they switch so fast that I can’t see much but the boxy and squiggly shape of the letters melting into blurry words and sentences. Underneath that screen is another one. This one isn’t bigger itself, but it has bigger letters and I can actually read it from here.

   ...or at least some of it. At the top it has these squiggly lines next to the words 'Heart Rate', 'Res-pair-at-ion...Resper-aton...Respreation?', and 'Brain Activity. The first two are just lines moving in the same pattern over and over, but the other one sits at the top of a blobby picture with all these different colors going through it. It's sorta pretty to watch. Pretty Pretty Pretty. The rest of the words on the screen are too small to read though. I try to press my face into the glass to see if that'll help, but nope. They're still to small and far away for me to see. Blegh, who cares about tiny words anyway; not me, that's for sure.

   I look around the room some more from my tube, but, as fun as bright, blinky lights are. I get bored again pretty quick. Eventually I just settle at the bottom of the tube and pull into my shell. The darkness is soothing after the brightness of the room. I spent so long in the dark- it's where I feel comfortable. The fit's a bit tighter now that I can fully pull my head in, but it just feels nice instead of restricting. I don't know exactly when, but eventually I fall asleep.

* * *

    "No no no no." I wake up to the sounds of Pinky freaking out around me. I huff and curl up a bit tighter into my shell. I hear the sound of air rushing and get a whiff of cool, fresh air right before I feel a skinny, boney body connect with my shell. "No no no! Come on!" He starts patting at my shell and saying stuff about how my soft tissue shouldn't have dissolved. I ignore him. Serves him right for sticking me in another tube. Then he sticks his fingers into my shell where my arms are tucked. I don't even think about it; my head pops out and I go to bite the offending digits.

   He managed to jerk back just quick enough to save his fingers. I glare at him as my arms, legs and tail also come back out. I'm not sure I really expected anything when I tried biting him, but I definitely didn't expect him to Jump on me and wrap his arms around the widest part of my shell. It was awkward and uncomfortable, and this guy is just really, really weird. He's just hugging me and crying a bit and talking about not being a failure and something about mutating and I really just want him off.

   I'm not ashamed to admit I hissed at him a bit. It's not really that impressive, but it does get him to let go of me. As he flinches back, move around him. Freedom!

   As soon as I’m up and running, Pinkey starts screeching at me again. I’m not falling for that this time! "Hey! Get back here!" Wow, weak and slow. This dude really is a big wimp. I can finally get a good look at all the words and stuff I couldn't read from the tube. I still have to dodge Pinky while I look, but he's such a slowpoke that barely have to bother. A lot of this stuff is all genes and chemicals and other boring stuff. No, all the cool stuff is in a different language.

   Reading all of this other language feels weirdly easy… Woah! He almost caught me there. It's not hard to get away from Pinky; He’s so so sloooow. This room’s a bit small though. I start moving back towards the back end of the room, I can't have him blocking my way out. As soon as he thinks he has me cornered, I jump over him and run for the door.

   I bolt out of the room and into the bigger one.  The bigger room looks cleaner than the first time I came through. A lot of the wires and stuff have been moved. Place to hide. Place to hide. The big tank has a lid now. Cool. Pla- 

   I stumble mid step as Pinky tries attach himself to my shell again. I barely manage to move out of the way in time. Nope. Nope. Nope. Not going in the tube again. As he falls onto the floor I make my way around the tank. When I look for another room or somewhere I can hide from Pinky, all I see are tables and piles of scrap. Higher up though...

   I make one more circuit around the tank with Pinky following close behind. I have to make sure I’m not just trapping myself. I slow down a bit when I figure out where I’m going. Just as I expect, Pinky tries to lung at me once I’m within reach. I backflip over him, letting him fall to the ground. As soon as I land, I turn and run in the opposite direction. There’s a counter sort of attached to the side of the tank. If not-me’s memories are right, I should be able to use the desk as a springboard up to the top of the tank.

   There’s a lot of papers and a computer on the table, but I don’t pay any attention to them. I jump onto the clearest spot i can see and then jump up towards the top of the tank. I hear a crash as the computer falls onto the floor and Pinky starts yelling again. I manage to get high enough on the tank that I can grab the top edge and haul myself the rest of the way up.

   I’m kind of surprised that, when i lay down on top of the tank’s lid and look back at Pinky, he doesn’t seem to care that I got away from him. “Nooooooo. My computer!” He groans and starts grabbing at the electronic on the floor. When he flips it over, I can see that the glass is cracked over a good chunk of the screen. Pinky starts fiddling with the power, but when it doesn’t turn on, he puts it onto the table and turns to where I’m watching form above. “You stupid turtle!” He yells, shaking his fist at me. I wave at him. He yells in frustration, picks up his computer and stomps off into one of the back corners of the room. Now that he’s pointed it out, I can see the door sitting back there in the dark.

   Huh. I must have missed it when he was chasing me. Once he’s slammed the door behind him, I relax a bit where I’m sitting. After all that chaos, I’m sort of tired again. The metal lid of the tank below me is nice and warm from sunlight streaming in through windows at the top of the walls and the goo below makes it vibrate gently. I yawn. Might as well take a nap....

* * *

   By the time I wake up again, Pinky still isn’t back. At least I don’t think so, since the whole place is quiet except for the buzzing of all of the different machines and stuff everywhere. It’s gotten dark outside and the spot I’ve been sleeping has started to get cold. I sit up and yawn, stretching my arms above my head. They make a very satisfying popping noise. I do more stretches as I pick myself up off the lid until I’m finally standing. I can feel the not-mine-memories in the back of urging me to do something, but i ignore them. Now that Pinky isn’t around and I can get a better look at those screens I was staring at earlier. Maybe they can tell me about the voice thing...

   It takes me a minute to remember where the room is, since there’s actually a few different doors blending into the sides of the big room. The door is still wide open when I look over though, and I can see the computers inside. I hop off the tank easily and make my way over, bouncing a bit in excitement.

   I give the tube a wide berth when I pass it by. It’s still open from earlier and I don’t need to get stuck in there again. The computers are just how we left them though- still showing the other three turtles rotating in place. Awwwwww, so cute. There’s a bunch of numbers and abbreviations on the screen around the picture, but I have no idea what any of them mean. The other two with the bigger turtles are the same way, but the screen that showed me before is empty now. And the lower one just has those words from before sitting on there with straight lines and no more blobby picture. Now lets see, how do I... Ah ha! There’s a panel connected to the bigger screen hiding behind the smaller one. The panel is black with these little white boxes Floating around. Now I just have to figure out how it works.

   Let’s see... I press onto the panel in between the boxes, and they all scoot over to the sides away from my hands like little fish. I lift my hand slowly, watching as all the little box fish come sliding back into place. This time, I go right for one of the boxes and a bunch of symbols pop up onto the screen. It’s not normal words like what’s on the lower screen, but I can still sort of read it if I squint and turn my head to the side. “Ana-lysis Comp-lete. View Re-sults? Yes. No. Re-ana-lyze,” I mouth to myself as I read. My fingers move with a mind of their own as I somehow manage to select ‘Yes” on the first try.

   Lines and lines of text scroll across the screen until it fills up and then keeps going. And going. And going. Shell, that’s a lot of text. This... is going to take a while. I squint at the text while my fingers make a flicking type of motion and cause the screen to scroll back up to the top of the ‘page’ while words keep adding themselves to the end of the page. 

   There’s less words at the top, thankfully, and the form some kind of header:

 

                Specimen: Turtle Mutant Clone Mutant

                I.D. Number: 00005

                Analysis: Cloning process interrupted. Unintended Complications...

 

   ‘Clone?’ I mouth to myself, “Un-inten-ded comp-il-ations?” Oh Shell. I don’t know what that means, but it sounds bad.

* * *

   I’m still trying to read through everything when the dude gets back.  “Turtle! What are you doing?!” He yelps when he sees me. When I look over, he’s got some kind of food in his hands. My stomach growls. I glance back at the screen again before telling the Kraang Comp-u-tation Ter-minal (which is apparently what it’s called according to help menu)  to save the analysis. It’s been... interesting.  Sort of. I keep having to switch between the analysis and the help screens to figure out what all the different words mean, but i kinda understand what happened.

   I stand up and stretch out my muscles, then push the screen and terminal back into their original positions from where I had moved them so I could sit while I read. When I look at him again, Pinkey is still standing there. He’s babbling a bit, but I ignore it in favor of looking him over again. He’s still the same thin, whimpering dude in a pink sweater I saw the first time, but, at the same time, he seems different. I’m not sure how to respond to this guy anymore (not that i ever really did). He seems nervous, but he isn’t doing anything past staring at me and fiddling with the bags in his hands. (And talking. He seems to like talking.)

   It’s just.... he’s my Creator. He’s basically my dad. But he also messed with my brain and made my head hurt so bad I couldn’t move without pain afterwards. He made me with some weird purpose in mind and judging by how upset he was when I couldn’t talk, I came out wrong. But he didn’t hurt me when he could have. he didn’t do anything to me except stick me in a tube and scan me. He even brought me food. Maybe it’s the Other’s memories telling me to give him the benefit of the doubt, but... I think I’ll trust him.

   I smile at him and wave. He seems... happy at my response and ushers me out into the main room, brandishing the food bags again. I follow him out, still smiling.

   We sit at the table I knocked the computer off of earlier. Together, we eat round meat on bread that he calls “burgers” and these thin yellow things called “fries”. I listen while he talks about his mutagen experiment and the human guy he turned into a duck mutant and how excited he is for the Shredder dude to see his work and how much he doesn’t like the mutants he works with and how they’re always mean to him. Then, he starts showing me all these diffent hand signs that mean different things so I can talk back to him. 

   It’s... nice, having dinner with my Dad. 

 

I think this is gonna be the start of something really great.

**Author's Note:**

> I had to reformat everything when I moved it onto AO3. Fun X)  
> If i missed anything or there’s a spelling error somewhere, feel free to tell me


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